NPP’s Ocquaye and Others reject Samia Nkrumah’s “Olive Branch”



Samia Nkrumah, Chairperson for the Convention People’s Party (CPP), was subjected to probably one of the longest and vilest lectures of her life when she joined the NPP to celebrate their 21st anniversary. During his speech marking the 21st anniversary of the founding of his party on August 22nd, NPP’s senior member Mike Ocquaye spent over an hour comparing the achievements of Danquah and Nkrumah. In his attempt to set the so called “record” straight, he spent a good chunk of his speech criticizing Nkrumah at the forum that was attended by Samia. (http://www.thestatesmanonline .com/index.php/politics/656-the-establishment-and-deepening-of-the-democratic-culture-and-practice-in-ghana-hon-prof-mike-oquaye). One would ask: Why would Samia attend a forum organized by a party that most of its members have sworn to be her father’s mortal foe? I am not sure why, but I presume she was there as chairwoman of the CPP to symbolically extend an olive branch to the NPP as they celebrated their anniversary. At a crucial time in the history of Ghana when we are preaching for unity and love, I applaud Samia for attending the NPP forum. However, Mr. Ocquaye cared less about her presence! And as if to say “to hell with your olive branch”, he consistently spat in her face by subjecting her to hours of lethal lecture about her father’s past while she sat in the crowd.

To some extent, Samia had herself to blame for venturing into the obvious “lion’s den”. It should not be a surprise that members of a party that played a leading role in the overthrow of her father, carried his effigies in coffins and buried them at cemeteries around the country on February 24, 1966, “mauled” her on their anniversary night. NPP party members cheered on as her father was being humiliated. Akuffo-Addo failed to intervene or condemn the act afterwards. Oh boy, she must have had a long ride back home after the event!

Immediately after February 24, 1966, the forebears of the NPP took a vow to make sure that the name Kwame Nkrumah and everything else associated with it never finds any favorable spot in the history of Ghana. Hence, it’s a shock to the majority of NPP members (especially the old ones like Mr. Ocquaye) that despite their attempts to scrape his remarkable accomplishments out of the annals of Ghana’s history “this” Nkrumah has resurrected and continues to soar above inconceivable heights not only in Ghana, but in Africa and around the world. After several years in exile (some self- imposed), when Samia returned to Ghana to continue where her father left off, many local political experts, realizing that she was a political novice, advised her to stay completely away from the NPP, but she would not listen. Rather, she preferred to distance herself from the NDC that, historically, has made every effort to honour her father at every given opportunity. Interestingly, when Samia lost her parliamentarian seat in her father’s homeland in the Jomoro district, she blamed the NDC. Like the NPP presidential candidate, Akuffo-Addo, she accused the NDC of rigging the election in her constituency by bringing in non-Ghanaians from the Ivory Coast to vote against her.



Following a dispute with Paa Kwesi Nduom, the former CPP presidential candidate, she publicly insulted him and never bothered to render an apology to a man (Nduom) who had spent a lot of his own money to keep the drowning CPP afloat. Consequently, Nduom resigned and formed his own party. Once again the Nkrumahists were divided and PPP was formed. On Sunday, August 25, 2013, Samia posted the following on her Facebook wall:



“Why are we engaging in this diversionary argument at this point in time when our people don't have basic needs? We have our different political policies and views but I want to see the day when the descendants of the Busia-Danquah tradition and those like me of the Nkrumaist tradition bury the hostility and focus on finding consensus to solve the many problems ordinary Ghanaians face on a daily basis: portable water, power supply, free, compulsory and quality education, basic access to safe healthcare and so forth. These are human and genuine democratic rights that all political parties must first address and facilitate 56 years after our independence”



(http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID= 283611)

Fundamentally, I am not against Samia’s overtures and attempts to smoke the “peace pipe” with the NPP, but my response to her Facebook posting is: First things first. If she can’t unite the Nkrumahists or find consensus with the NDC (that hold your father in high esteem) why does she think she can find compromise with the NPP? I hope she takes advice from late President Mills’ quote: “Dze wo fie asem”.



Ebby Mienza